All of our lives matter

I believe the Black Lives Matter mission is misunderstood because all lives matter. African American/black lives matter, Anglo Saxon/white lives matter, Hispanic lives matter, Chinese lives matter, and Christian, Jew and Muslim lives matter.

However, I am an African American/black lady and I understand the root of the Black Lives Matter movement. Civil rights have been fought for from 1865 to now. The first generation still has a slave mentality. Members of the second generation were taught in segregated schools and taught that they could be whatever they wanted to be if they worked hard at it—a lawyer, doctor, teacher, preacher, nurse, politician, and even the president and first lady of the United States of America.

The third generation is the generation of Why. Why is it that African Americans/blacks seem to have the highest percentage of poverty, unemployment, homelessness and some still live in shanty shacks? Education is also an issue because it appears the Little Rock School District is “dumbing down” African Americans/black youth. Some have slipped through the cracks and do not know the three R’s: Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. This is why education starts at home.

Why does it seem the criminal justice system is designed to incarcerate young black men by the masses? Society treats jail and prison like a business, and with a business you have to have revenue, clients or customers. So the business is surviving off the backs of young African Americans.

I have two children and I do not put them on a pedestal where they can fall off. I listen, communicate and I tell my children that black lives matter “too” because all lives matter. MARQUITTA J. CORBIN

Conway